American scientists created the world's first rotating detonation engine, which was previously considered impossible

A Florida-based engineering team for the United States Air Force has been able to design and successfully test a laboratory version of a rotating detonation rocket engine. Its work is based on rotating explosions inside the annular channel. This creates extremely efficient thrust.

What is a detonation engine

All of us have long been accustomed to classic engines that use fuel combustion. Moreover, this process is relatively slow and easy to control. As they say, the technology is time-tested, but at the same time it is being improved all the time.

But with detonation, everything is more complicated. After all, this is an almost uncontrollable process (it was earlier), as a result of which a huge amount of energy is released.

And detonation is the perfect way to destroy something. In doing so, you only slightly nudge the explosive molecule, imparting an electrical impulse or transferring a kinetic impulse to the explosive molecule in the form of a detonation wave.

At the same time, much more energy is released during the detonation process with less fuel consumption than with controlled combustion.

Therefore, for more than half a century, rocket engineers have been trying to create a detonation engine that will be able, for example, to lift more cargo into orbit, with less fuel consumption.

How a laboratory detonation engine works

At its core, a detonation engine is a pair of cylinders, one nested inside the other, and the gap between them is a couple of millimeters.

Special channels and slots are made on the cylinders in certain places, which are necessary for pushing the detonation mixture.

With the help of a special ignition system, the previously supplied mixture is detonated in the cylinders. Next, gases are formed, expelled from one edge of the annular structure to generate thrust in the opposite direction.

But the same process forms a shock wave that begins to move around the channel at an incredible speed, which exceeds the speed of sound five times. And it is precisely this shock wave that is used to further detonate the mixture in a self-sustaining system. Provided that the fuel for detonation will be supplied according to a certain algorithm.

The first attempts to create such an engine were made back in the 1950s, but all of them were unsuccessful.

But as it turned out, the whole thing was in the correct setting of the fuel mixture supply system.

What is curious just a couple of months before the publication of the material about the development of the engine, other American experts argued that the creation of a detonation engine was simply impossible.

According to the developers, their engine may well replace such a rocket as the RL-10 from the company. Aerojet rocketdynedeveloped back in 1962. The current versions of these are still supplied for the upper stages of the missiles. Atlas V and Delta IVand further options are under development for missiles Exploration, OmegA and Vulcan.

But the created detonation engine can seriously compete with them. So, according to representatives of the US Air Force, full-scale tests of the new development are scheduled for 2025.

Well, let's see what the Americans get with the new, previously considered impossible engine.

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